Snake-bitten in their own game: Unscrupulous collectors threaten wildlife

Tuesday

Mar 24, 2009 at 12:01 AM

"The last word in ignorance is the man who says of the plant or animal, 'what good is it.' " — Aldo Leopold, forester, ecologist, author, founder, The Wilderness Society

"The last word in ignorance is the man who says of the plant or animal, 'what good is it.' " — Aldo Leopold, forester, ecologist, author, founder, The Wilderness Society

Wildlife belongs where its name implies: in the wild.

Too bad so many people refuse to respect that important policy. Recently the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and state environmental agencies busted a poaching and trafficking operation in Pennsylvania and New York. Undercover officials recovered thousands of endangered and threatened snakes, turtles and salamanders.

These creatures belong to all citizens and not in the hands of unscrupulous collectors — or in a soup bowl, the destination for hundreds of illegally trapped New York snapping turtles.

Investigators spent hundreds of hours on Internet chat rooms, at on-line sales sites, and at herpetological shows in the two states to document the illegal poaching and sales. In one episode they found dozens of endangered Massasauga rattlesnakes stuffed in a minivan's door panels. They had been swapped for a threatened species, timber rattlesnakes, from New York.

Another example involved hundreds of snapping turtles illegally trapped in New York, then sold to a meat processor in Maryland. A third revealed a Louisiana turtle farm operator who bought thousands of snapper hatchlings purloined from New York. He planned to send them to China.

Massasaugas are shy, secretive, marsh-loving snakes named "Big River Mouth" by the Chippewa Indians. They avoid humans; bites are rare. They play an important role in the mostly Midwestern wetland areas where they live, dining on voles, mice and shrews and keeping the rodent population in check. Their numbers are dwindling not only through poaching but through habitat destruction, as the midwestern wetlands they prefer gradually have been filled in or drained to make way for development.

Habitat destruction also affects the rare bog turtle, an endangered species native to eastern Pennsylvania and occasionally found in the Poconos. Conscience-free collectors covet this small, attractive turtle.

All species, from the rarely seen massasauga to the large and more visible snapping turtle, play a unique role in the web of existence human beings call Nature. It's perilous to think losing any one species has no effect on the whole. Should a novice car owner open the hood, look with confusion at the engine, and randomly remove and discard a part?

New York in 2006 enacted a law banning all commercial trade in native reptiles and amphibians. But poaching continues, upsetting the intricate natural balance. In this day and age it's dismaying to discover how wide-ranging the despicable act of animal poaching continues to be despite laws designed to protect wildlife. Investigators deserve credit for their diligence in tracking violators and bringing them to justice. In illicitly obtaining protected wildlife, they undermine the complex structure of plants and animals on which all life — including human life — depends, and deprive law-abiding citizens of the beauty and special utility of these species.